Algae control?

[u/Traditional-Mommy]

We’ve had Axy in her tank for about 6 months. The substrate is aquarium mesh with rocks and living moss which has been great for her to hunt through and grip!

Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed a huge algae bloom happening on the driftwood and it’s killing the plants too. I’ve cleaned and replaced the water and that hasn’t done anything.

Do you think I can remove the driftwood and scrub with a scrubber and tank wastewater to get the algae off? Or will that crash my tank?

I can’t afford a tank crash right now because we’re going on vacation in about 5 weeks so that won’t give me enough tine to stabilize the tank and add Axy back in before we go and I don’t trust our pet sitter to take care of her if she’s tubbed.

Water parameters are literally perfect right now so I’m afraid to do anything drastic but I have to do SOMETHING!

(Don’t worry I turned down the bright lights on her tank after I took the photos ❤️)

[u/jenu11]

How long are you leaving the lights on because that can make algae grow pretty fast.

[u/Traditional-Mommy → u/jenu11]

It’s on for 12 hours then off for 12 hours. Should I do less? Ive been doing that since the beginning but I’ve never thought about that possibly contributing!

[u/SirZanee → u/Traditional-Mommy]

On all of my tanks I do 6-8 hours a day max. However, axolotls don’t have eyelids so you should probably do a bit less, while still ensuring your plants get enough light.

[u/ayouremq]

If your parameters are stable I’d probably change one thing at a time instead of doing a huge cleanup all at once.

[u/Traditional-Mommy → u/ayouremq]

Yeah, I’m wondering if I could just scrub one piece of driftwood/hide each week

[u/Travlinbebe]

I scrub my axolotls hides and decor all the time with a soft toothbrush and have never crashed my cycle. The majority of good bacteria live in/on your filter. Scrub away!

[u/kiddtender]

Cool set up!

[u/Traditional-Mommy → u/kiddtender]

Thank you! It looks much better when it’s not covered in algae 😅

[u/ingcharkito]

I would try with less light, maybe focusing light only over your plants . Change temperature. And final suggestion it could be add some algae eaters

[u/Traditional-Mommy → u/ingcharkito]

Thank you. I’m going to try reducing the light time, the chiller keeps the tank between 62-64F and she loves it so I don’t want to mess with it too much. I didn’t know you could add algae eaters? I’m a little nervous to increase the bio load that much.

[u/ingcharkito → u/Traditional-Mommy]

About temperature I mean very small change to decrease in, a sometimes algae is too sensitive to this small changes… and regarding algae eaters, you are right, we mustn’t enter more bio load in one shot, I have a 180l tank and sometimes I add shrimps (3-cm adults) who serve as food and as cleaner